Fire strikes NC farm again, and this time 11,000 chickens died

About 11,000 chickens died on a farm in Statesville Tuesday morning after a fire destroyed a chicken house.
WBTV

About 11,000 chickens died on a farm in Statesville Tuesday morning after a fire engulfed and destroyed a chicken house on the property.

Firefighters arrived to the farm at 405 Vaughn Mill Road shortly after 7 a.m. Tuesday, where they found the the chicken house in flames, the Statesville Record & Landmark reported. A dozen were able to escape the fire, the paper reported, but firefighters were unable to save the thousands of remaining chickens trapped by the flames.

“We just managed (the fire) and protected it from spreading,” David Johnson of the County Line Volunteer Fire Department, told the Record & Landmark.

The fire was the second at the farm within the past year. Iredell Fire Marshal David Souther told the Record & Landmark he believes the fire started at the center of the house where electronic controls are present. He said a small amount of wind can pick up and stir up saw dust around the controls, starting a flash fire.

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In October, a fire destroyed another chicken house that was next to the one burned Tuesday. No chickens were harmed by the fire in October because they had been sold, the Record & Landmark reported. The house was reportedly worth about $350,000, but no value was provided for the house destroyed in Tuesday’s fire or for the poultry.

Johnson told the Record & Landmark he is talking with the state Department of Agriculture on how to properly handle the remains of the dead chickens.

Thousands of chickens also died in another Iredell County fire in 2015. WBTV, the Observer’s news partner, reported nearly 3,000 chickens perished in the May 2015 fire that destroyed a chicken house west of Statesville.